Tantek posted this short piece about the evolution of smart products in the IndieWeb chat earlier; it’s an interesting read on a couple of different levels. Firstly, you could sub out “IOT” for “AI” and the core premise would hold up. Then there was this quote from Henry Kim, an executive at LG, about consumer behavior:

“The challenge is that a consumer doesn’t see the true value that manufacturers see in terms of how that data can help them in the long run. So they don’t really care for spending time to just connect it.”

This strikes me as more than a little tone deaf… I think the value element is certainly a big consideration in consumers not connecting their “smart” appliances, but surely a significant contributing factor is that people just don’t trust manufacturers to not abuse the data from connected appliances. The value of the convenience offered by a connected device just doesn’t outweigh having your usage data indiscriminately sold to advertisers (and possibly even less trustworthy actors). If manufacturers used my data to actually add value to my life and not as an additional revenue stream, I’d be more likely to spend the time to connect my “smart” products.